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  1. darkling love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adv. In the dark.
  2. adj. Occurring or enacted in the dark.
  3. adj. Dark; dim.
  4. n. The dark: "She carried some rugs for me through the shrubbery in the darkling” ( H.G. Wells).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. In the dark.
  2. Hence Blindly; uncertainly.
  3. Dark; obscure; gloomy.
  4. Blinded.
  5. Rendering dark; obscuring.
  6. Sitting in the dark.

Wiktionary

  1. n. darkness
  2. n. fantasy a creature that lives in the dark
  3. adj. dark; darkening
  4. adj. obscure, done or happening 'in the dark' or unseen
  5. adv. in the dark, obscurely
  6. v. present participle of darkle.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adv. Poetic In the dark.
  2. Becoming dark or gloomy; frowing.
  3. Dark; gloomy.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. uncannily or threateningly dark or obscure
  2. adj. (poetic) occurring in the dark or night

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English derkelyng, from derk ("dark") + -lyng ("-ling"). (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “Then clipt and clung about his breast enveiled in darkling room.”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night

  • “And died in darkling air no more to be for ever shown.’”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night

  • “Plus, if I just threw in some multisyllabic words, extended my sentences until each was a paragraph long, and used "darkling" a few times, I'd be the Faulkner of Phoenix.”

    Gayle Lynds: "Aping" Her Betters

  • “Many of her class set out by being impostors, and end by becoming enthusiasts, or hold a kind of darkling conduct between both lines, unconscious almost when they are cheating themselves, or when imposing on others.”

    Chapter XLVII

  • “Many of her class set out by being impostors and end by becoming enthusiasts, or hold a kind of darkling conduct between both lines, unconscious almost when they are cheating themselves or when imposing on others.”

    Guy Mannering, Or, the Astrologer — Volume 02

  • “Mine was the woman, darkling I found her,'" he hummed, significantly.”

    CHAPTER 25

  • “To him I reported every detail that occurred when he was not with me; and he, with furrowed brows, sitting darkling by the hour, like a patient spider unravelled the tangle and spun the web afresh.”

    Chapter 15

  • “They vanished in the darkling air, but a moment later, two of the distant figures fell, pinned to the ground.”

    Simon & Schuster: GuildWars Edge of Destiny

  • “Standing recently upon the heathery crest of Hartcliff Hill we looked due west, where the Woodhead Road climbs Bord Hill, where the darkling moortops were suddenly illuminated.”

    The Guardian: Country diary: Langsett

  • “He advocates despair in the face of life on a darkling plain on which ignorant armies clash by night, a wasteland.”

    The Poet Alfred Edward Housman « Unknowing

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synonyms (3)

Words with the same meaning

  1. frowing
  1. dark
  1. gloomy

equivalents (1)

Other words for ‘darkling’

  1. dark

same context (22)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. fathomless
  2. starlit
  3. wintry
  4. sunlit
  1. star-spangled
  2. vaporous
  3. low-lying
  4. darksome
  1. twilit
  2. murky
  3. pathless
  4. ill-boding
  1. starry
  2. bosky
  3. treeless
  4. dusky
  1. sunless
  2. mossy
  3. inky
  4. chalky
  1. equatorial
  2. sombre

reverse dictionary (7)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. tenebrionid
  1. -ling
  1. darkling
  1. tenebrionidae
  1. family tenebrionidae
  1. ling
  1. shade

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. cvcccvcc
  1. tmp

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Lists

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Comments

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  • sionnach And we are here as on a darkling plain
    Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
    Where ignorant armies clash by night.

    – Matthew Arnold , Dover Beach. Nov 3, 2007

  • brtom ... as the wakeful Bird
    Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid
    Tunes her nocturnal Note.
    Milton, Paradise Lost III Dec 18, 2006

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‘darkling’ has been looked up 1743 times, loved by 16 people, added to 37 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 14.